Trouble Trail

by J. T. Edson

  ‘I’ll slash the ribbons, grab them and the whip, and start this old wagon rolling,’ Calamity suggested.

  ‘Hold hard there, gal!’ Resin whispered, moving back along the wagon and bending over the kegs. ‘Let me find one with powder in it, then run us close by the fire.’

  ‘Sure,’ Calamity replied.

  An inch at a time, moving slowly and cautiously, Calamity drew the whip into the wagon and shook it loose. While it weighed a mite heavier than her own, she reckoned she might be able to handle it with no trouble. Next she unfastened the reins and gripped them between the strong capable fingers of her left hand. Now Calamity was all set to do her part and just waited for the word.

  Resin had found what he wanted, a twenty-five pound keg of gunpowder. Taking out his Ames knife, he tried to separate a couple of the keg’s staves but the cooper who made it knew his business and they held firm. Which meant he had to drop it right on, or very close to the flames if he hoped to create the desired diversion. Still holding the knife, Resin hefted the keg in his hands and turned his head.

  ‘Let her go, Calam!’

  ‘YEEEAH!’

  Letting out a screech near on loud enough to wake the dead, Calamity bounded on to the wagon box, swung the whip in an explosive pop over the head of the team and booted free the brake. Already restless, the high-spirited team horses lunged forward with a heave that jerked the wagon into motion like a cork plucked from a bottle.

  Instantly pandemonium reigned around the camp fire. Few if any of the Cheyenne had other than knives with them at the pow-wow and even those who bore arms did not find a chance to use them in the confusion. Women screamed, clung to their men, or fled. Warriors bounded to their feet, cannoning into each other like so many pool balls and none knew for sure just what to do.

  Bigelow added to the confusion by starting to throw lead with both hands. Not that he went in for any fancy aiming, but merely sprayed into the brown in the direction of Sand Runner and the renegade. Once more the gods of war favoured the white folks, for a bullet from the Army Colt in Bigelow’s right hand tore through the renegade’s throat. Sand Runner’s own luck held. A brave at his right went down with a Navy ball in his chest, the renegade fell at the other side, a bullet ripped a couple of eagle feathers from his hair, but he remained unharmed and Bigelow was carried by him on the rushing wagon.

  A naked brave, knife in hand, sprang from a tipi followed by a screaming, naked girl. Howling his kill-or-die shout, the brave hurled himself forward, meaning to try to halt the wagon by knifing the nearer of the horses. He came on the side away from Bigelow and Calamity knew there would be no time to attract the captain’s attention and change his target. Being a resourceful young woman, Calamity did not waste time. Back drew her whip hand, sending the lash flying forward. The borrowed whip had a different feel from her own, but she let fly just the same.

  Although Calamity’s aim proved to be a mite off, she could not argue against the results. Actually the Indian might have counted himself real lucky, for the whip curled around his knife wrist and snapped it like a rotten twig—instead of circling his neck and hauling him forward under the wagon’s wheels.

  With the menace handled, Calamity concentrated on driving the team. Already they had passed the fire and were headed for the darkness.

  At the rear of the wagon Resin stood gripping the powder keg and his knife in between his hands. A Cheyenne brave sprang for and caught hold of the rear of the wagon. swinging himself up. Without releasing the keg. Resin brought up his foot and stamped on the red face, pitching the brave over backwards. Then, with a swing of his powerful arms, the big scout hurled the powder keg in the direction of the fire. However, the awkward manner in which he held keg and knife prevented him getting quite enough distance in his throw. The keg landed, bounced and rolled into the embers, but not on to the naked flames.

  Just as Resin decided to speed the explosion by shooting into the keg, he saw a familiar figure. A yellow-ochre face twisted into a devil-mask of hatred glared at Resin and a hand raised an old Dragoon Colt. There was no time to draw a gun. Resin whipped back his hand, gripping the Ames knife for a throw. Down came the hand, fire-light glinted on flying steel and the knife sped at Sand Runner’s body. If he had been less interested in trying to stop the wagon. Sand Runner might have avoided the throw. So intent was he on stopping the departure of the arms—and his bank-book, that he took a chance. Which was when his medicine ran out. The Ames knife drove down just over his waistbelt and sank almost hilt deep in his belly. Even so, he triggered off one shot that fanned wind by Resin’s ear in passing on through the top of the wagon’s canopy. He doubled over, clutching the knife to jerk it from his body and hurl it aside. Turning, he staggered blindly towards the council fire.

  Then the powder keg blew!

  With a roar like thunder and a sheet of flame that lit up the night and was seen at the distant wagon train, the keg, heated by the fire, exploded. It threw flaming wood into the air as the fire shattered, and pitched Indians off their feet by the blast. The wagon’s team hit their harness so hard in their panic to get away from the noise that they lifted its wheels from the ground and almost threw the three occupants out; then, man, did those two horses run, tearing through the wood like the devil after a yearling. Nor were they the only horses to run. The Cheyenne remuda came from sleeping to terrified wakefulness and the herd boys had no more chance of stopping the wild stampede than they would have had of stopping water flowing downhill. One thing was for sure, there would be no Indian pursuit that night.

  Muldoon heard the explosion and fought to restrain his panic-stricken horses, but could only hold the Appaloosa and one more. Curses sputtered from his lips as the other animals raced away. With old cavalry skill, he brought the two remaining horses under control.

  ‘Muldoon!’ roared a voice. ‘This way, as fast as you can come.’

  Leaping afork his horse, and leading the Appaloosa, Muldoon galloped into the night, heading for the distant sound of a wagon travelling at speed. He did not even start to imagine how Resin and Calamity came to be using a wagon, reckoned he might learn soon enough.

  Calamity would never know for sure how she managed to steer the fear-crazed horses through the wood. Yet she did so. They crashed through the stream, flattened a few bushes, scraped a tree or two, then were out on the open range.

  ‘I got the renegade,’ Bigelow announced with some Satisfaction as Calamity brought the team under control.

  ‘And I got Sand Runner, me’n’ the explosion between us,’ Resin said.

  ‘You sound a mite sad, Beau,’ Calamity remarked.

  ‘Am a mite, gal. I’ll never be able to replace that old Ames knife.’

  ‘I’ve just thought,’ Bigelow went on, his voice flat and emotionless. ‘I will have to face a court of inquiry to explain how the hell I was captured.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MISS CANARY IS A WITNESS

  ‘WADE!’ Never would Calamity forget the sound of Molly’s voice as the wagon came to a halt outside the circle in the early light of the dawn. Nor the sight of the sedate, modest little schoolteacher springing from her uncle’s Conestoga and running forward clad only in a flimsy nightdress which did not conceal as well as the more conventional flannel bedwear what lay underneath.

  The explosion had woken the camp and people peered from their wagons, then started to climb out and make their way towards Calamity’s party. Molly, oblivious of everything except that her beloved Wade had come back to her, flung her arms around the captain’s neck and kissed him. Nobody could blame Bigelow for grabbing a good double armful of his sweetheart and kissing her back.

  ‘All right, folks,’ Calamity snapped as people began to gather and stare at the lovers. ‘Let’s get back to our wagons, shall we?’

  Her orders received backing from Resin and Muldoon, both of whom could turn a blistering phrase when needed and were used to enforcing their will on other folk. While the men held back the crowd, Ca
lamity managed to separate the lovers and haze Molly back to the wagon with orders to get dressed afore she started every man on the train going love-sick.

  Not until some time later did Calamity remember her own appearance. She had headed for Killem’s fire and noticed the way the men glanced down at her feet, as she thought, and grinned broadly.

  ‘As a fashion I can’t see it ever catching on,’ said Eileen’s voice from the wagon.

  ‘Huh?’ Calamity grunted.

  ‘The new style pants.’

  Looking down, Calamity realised that she still wore the legless levis and for once in her life felt embarrassed. With an angry, squealing blanket curse at the grinning men, she dashed to the wagon and changed into a more conventional—Calamity’s own convention, that is—pair of pants.

  Over breakfast Resin told the wagonmaster, Killem and Grade what had happened at the Cheyenne camp.

  ‘Get your boys out to take a good look ‘round,’ the scout suggested. ‘It’s my reckoning that the explosion stampeded the Cheyenne remuda to hell and gone and they’ll not get enough hosses back to come and try to re-take the arms wagon.’

  ‘Probably,’ Grade agreed. ‘You know, Beau, the colonel at Sherrard’s not going to look too hard at why Wade got himself captured when he hears what you’ve accomplished between you.’

  ‘That’s likely,’ agreed Resin. ‘Happen Sand Runner had come through with all these arms, he could have set this whole damned territory on fire.’

  ‘And he was a white man.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’d like to take a look through that book he mentioned,’ Grade said.

  ‘Wade’s got it, though how in hell he expects to find time to read it and convince Molly he’s all right, I’ll never know.’

  Scouts went out and made a thorough search of the area, seeing no sign of the Cheyenne. So the wagon train resumed its journey at the usual hour, carrying on westwards. Eileen sat on the box of Calamity’s wagon, handling the ribbons and allowing the red-head to catch some sleep. With the well-trained team, Eileen found no difficulty in keeping the wagon moving over the gently rolling, open plains through which they travelled.

  Along towards noon there came an interruption to the journey.

  A shot roared out from behind a rim and Bear Trailer, the interpreting war-bonnet chief rode into sight, his rifle held in peace fashion. Leaving the wagon where he bad been sleeping, Resin borrowed a horse and rode to meet the advancing chief, wondering what had brought the other to the train.

  ‘Damned Comanche!’ grunted the chief, a twinkle in his eyes that belied his expressionless face. ‘You plenty spoiled Sand Runner’s medicine this time.’

  ‘You found him then?’

  ‘All over the camp.’

  Neither man spoke for a time, but sat facing each other; hereditary enemies from the days when the white men first began his abuses against the Indian yet each capable of admiring the other as a fighter and a man.

  ‘Didn’t hurt you, did we?’ asked Resin.

  ‘A few bruises, nothing more,’ answered the chief and reached behind him to pull something from his waistbelt. ‘Reckon maybe you’d want this.’

  For once in his life the taciturn, unemotional scout almost let out a whoop of joy as he stared at the object in Bear Trailer’s hand. Only a thousand Ames knives had been made and were issued to the 3rd Cavalry back in the days when they went under the name of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen, Resin had obtained his from a dead trooper at the Battle of Shilo during the War Between the States, taken a fancy to its heft and balance and retained it. One grew used to a good knife and Resin thought his Ames to be gone for ever and irreplaceable as the company no longer existed. Yet there the knife lay, in Bear Trailer’s hand, its hilt pointing towards him.

  ‘You treated me with honour, Tshaoh,’ the chief said. ‘I bring your knife.’

  ‘My thanks, Bear Trailer,’ said the scout, taking and sheathing the knife. ‘What do you do now?’

  ‘Go back to our people. The men have no wish for war and we must think of the future. Goodbye, Tshaoh, one called Bear Trailer will not forget you.’

  ‘Ride warily, brother,’ Resin answered and took out his filled tobacco pouch. ‘May the smoke remind you of me.’

  With that the two men parted. Maybe the next time they met one or the other would die, but that did not mean they would ever lose their respect for a bold, noble, fighting man.

  Although Bigelow listened to Grade and Eileen telling him he had nothing to fear, each mile he came nearer to Fort Sherrard the more he thought of thç court of inquiry he must face. It was all very well for Grade and Eileen to say the colonel would overlook his capture and think only of the death of the renegade, recovery of arms and ending of a major raiding party of hostile Cheyenne. Neither of them gave a thought to the fact that Bigelow belonged to the Quartermaster Corps and had hoped to obtain a transfer to the cavalry regiment at Sherrard. No colonel would willingly take an officer stupid enough to let himself be captured by the Indians.

  Then one day the fort came into sight. A cavalry escort had come out the previous day and a rider returned with Bigelow’s full report. It also took a letter from Eileen to her husband and a second from the young lady to the colonel. The results of Eileen’s letters showed when the train pulled in at just before noon.

  ‘Captain Bigelow?’ said the officer of the day. ‘The colonel presents his compliments, and asks you to dine with him. The court of inquiry into your report will be held at three o’clock.’

  ‘Well, Molly,’ Bigelow said, taking the girl’s hands in his. ‘We’ll know by four whether your husband is still in employment or not.’

  ‘You won’t be my husband until five,’ she replied. ‘And I don’t care which way things go, as long as we’re together.’

  ‘We’ll be that. Here’s Eileen and her husband now.’

  Captain Tradle, tall, handsome and more masterful than Eileen could ever remember, exchanged salutes with Bigelow and grinned. ‘You’re a blasted nuisance, Wade, why didn’t you hold back your report for a few days, Eileen and I were going—deer-hunting—for a three-day pass and now we’ve got to wait until after the court of inquiry. Congratulations, we’ve been after that renegade for some time now, and expecting Sand Runner to blow the whole territory apart and you’ve nailed them both. Come on. we’re all invited to dine with the colonel and his wife looks disapproving if her guests don’t arrive promptly.’

  ‘Is Calamity coming?’ Molly asked Eileen as they walked off together.

  ‘She excused herself,’ Eileen explained. ‘Said she was so damned scared at having to go witness at the court of inquiry that she daren’t come.’

  For a scared girl Calamity looked mighty cool, calm and collected as she sat at the long table and faced the board of officers assigned to investigate Bigelow’s report. There was none of the awe-inspiring ceremonial seriousness of a court martial, the officers did not wear their best parade dress but sat in their working clothes, and the evidence was not given on oath. Anyhow, Calamity had never been a girl unduly worried by atmosphere. So she gave her evidence in a clear voice that bore the ring of pure, driven truth.

  ‘So you say that you and Miss Johnson went for a joy-ride while the men skinned out and dressed the buffalo,’ said the major in command after hearing the girl’s ‘truthful’ account of the incident, ‘and that Captain Bigelow came after you, then sacrificed himself to prevent the Cheyenne finding you.’

  ‘Yep!’ she replied, meeting his eye without flinching.

  ‘That is not what Captain Bigelow told us.’

  ‘Likely. He’s an officer and a gentleman, so wouldn’t want to show a couple of gals as having made a damned fool mistake. Nor would any of you!’

  Grins flickered on to at least three faces and Captain Tradle went so far as to give Calamity a quick wink. However, one of the board of officers had to be a green young shavetail second-lieutenant on his first court of inquiry and full of remembrance
o lectures on court procedure received at West Point. Being more inclined than the others to treat the matter seriously—after all, they were cavalry officers dealing with a mere shiny-butt—he did not smile.

  ‘Would Miss Canary give the same evidence under oath?’ he asked.

  Grins died away and frowns took their place, promising extra officer-of-the-day and other onerous duties in the near future.

  ‘There is no need to go into extremes. Mr. Bolroyd,’ the major growled. ‘I accept Miss Canary’s st—evidence.’

  Even a green shavetail with the mud of West Point hardly worn from his boots knew better than argue with a major, especially one holding the brevet rank of brigadier-general and next in line for command of their mutual regiment.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bolroyd said.

  Taking up Bigelow’s report in one hand, the major extracted a pipe from his blouse, thrust its stem into his mouth and produced a match which he lit on his trousers seat.

  ‘Our friend Sand Runner appears to have made a fair profit over the past two years, according to his bank-book, but it gives no clue to his real identity. I think we will leave the disposal of his ill-gotten gains to the Adjutant-General’s department.’

  While speaking, the major accidentally allowed the light of his match to come into contact with Bigelow’s neatly-written report. Even as the paper took fire, Tradle threw over his chair and came to his feet. First he rammed his elbow hard into the eager young Bolroyd’s ribs and staggered the young gentleman to one side; then, to make further sure of the safety of the report, grabbed at and knocked over the water jug.

  ‘That was clumsy of me,’ said Captain Tradle. ‘I’m afraid your report’s gone, Wade.’

  ‘The moral of which, gentlemen,’ the major went on, ‘is never smoke on duty. Now, I think we can say that no further action need be taken against Captain Bigelow and that he acted in the finest traditions of the U.S. Cavalry. I would also suggest that when he re-submits his report, he keeps it to matters of military interest, such as the death of the renegade and Sand Runner, the capture of the arms wagon and the disbanding of the Cheyenne war band. Anything else smacks of self-advertisement and I object to any officer assigned or transferred to my command acting in such a manner.’ He paused and ground the ashes of the report to powder under his thumb, then took out his watch. ‘Gentlemen, the time is four o’clock and I have it on good authority that my wife and Mrs. Tradle plan to give us all hell if we make Captain Bigelow’s wedding start late. Dismissed.’